The Highest Percentage Shot in Rocket League
What 35,647 shots from 1,589 games, ranked 2s from Plat to SSL and the pros’ own, reveal about shot speed in Rocket League. Which shots go in, how hard to hit them, where to put them and how the power is made.
Two Diamond players take a low shot from the same spot at a keeper sat on the floor. One gets saved. The other goes in. The only real difference is how hard it was hit. So we measured every shot, to find the highest percentage way to score in 2v2.
at every rank from Plat to SSL,
and for the pros
898 games kept back, 20,122 shots
from finding them
Hard shots go in more at every rank and for the pros, for the same player in the same game, and with the spot, the defenders and the pressure held fixed. And nobody hits harder as they climb.
Thirty three claims were written down before they were scored on the games kept back to test them. Thirty one held, and the two that failed are in full below.
An experiment. It’s replay data. A hard shot often comes from a better moment, which is why every finding is checked from the same spot and against the same player’s own shots.
Whether a flipped miss gets you countered more. The data can’t call it either way. And how the flavours of air dribble compare, which is my coaching, not a number.
What’s the highest percentage shot in Rocket League?
Every coach has an opinion on finishing. Place it, don’t blast it. Shoot low. Get it in the corner. We wanted the numbers, at every rank, for the shots people actually take.
A shot here is any touch that sends the ball towards the opponents’ goal, whether it goes in, gets saved or misses. Shot speed is how fast the ball comes off the car, in kilometres per hour, the same number the game’s own stats use.
35,647 shots, every frame of every game.
Ranked 2v2 games from Ballchasing, about the same number at every rank from Platinum to Supersonic Legend, and the pros’ own 2v2 games. Every game was read frame by frame, every touch towards goal found, and its speed, its height at the goal and whether it went in measured.
The games were split before anything was measured. One set to explore and find the patterns, and one kept back. Every claim on this page was written down first and then tested once on the games kept back. The figures shown are from those, 898 games and 20,122 shots, about 150 games at each rank and 150 of the pros’.
| Rank | Games |
|---|---|
| Platinum | 150 |
| Diamond | 150 |
| Champion | 149 |
| Grand Champion | 149 |
| Supersonic Legend | 150 |
| The pros | 150 |
Every rank hits the ball at the same speed. Even the pros.
You’d expect higher ranks to hit it harder. They don’t. The median shot is about 83 kph at every rank, and six shots in ten are under 90, every single rank.
Median shot speed, kph
And the pros? Same story. Their median is 84, the same as GC, and their soft shots go in fewer than one time in five, the same as SSL.
Shots that go in, under 90 kph and 90 plus
Nobody seems to fix it on the way up. Which means if you do, it’s an advantage the ranks above you haven’t taken.
From the same spot, the harder you hit it, the more it goes in. Up to about 120.
Under 90 kph, about one shot in four goes in. Over 90, it’s nearly four in ten. And it keeps climbing with every band, from the same spot on the pitch.
Shots that go in, same spot, by shot speed
Then it drops off. But it isn’t the keeper. A shot past 120 that’s on target still goes in about two times in three, nearly as often as at 110. There are just fewer of them on target.
Shots on target, by shot speed
Accuracy climbs with speed too. Under 60, only four shots in ten are even on target. At 110, nearly six in ten. So the sweet spot isn’t as hard as you can possibly hit it. It’s about 110, hard and still clean.
The same player, in the same game, scores more with their own hard shots.
The obvious doubt. Better players hit it harder and score more anyway. So we checked every player against themselves, in the same game. Their own hard shots went in 38% of the time, their own soft ones 23%.
Same player, same game, under 90 kph and 90 plus
It isn’t the situation either. Open net or someone in goal, under pressure or not, with the defenders, a pass, the air and the flip held fixed, the hard shot still goes in more. And it isn’t the winners. In a game, the winning team’s misses were hit hard no more often than the losing team’s, in half of 542 games.
Placement helps. Speed helps more. Both together is the best.
Isn’t a slower shot fine if you put it in the right place? We took every shot on target with someone in net and split them two ways. Low or off the floor, slow or hard. Low means the bottom third of the goal, hard means 90 kph or more.
On target with someone in net, shots that go in
And low is at its worst when they’re on the floor. Into a keeper sat on the ground, low shots go in about a third of the time. Off the floor, nearly half. Once they’ve jumped, or with nobody in net, it barely matters where you put it.
On target, low and off the floor, by where the keeper is
And remember, a slow shot isn’t the more accurate one. Under 60 kph, only four in ten are even on target.
Hard beats soft inside every kind. Wall shots go in least.
Does it matter what kind of shot it is? Inside every kind, aerials, half volleys and power shots, the hard one goes in more. The shot that goes in least is the wall shot, about one in eight.
Then there’s air dribbles. At Plat, two or three shots in a hundred are air dribbles. At SSL and for the pros, it’s nearly one in five.
Air dribbles, share of shots
And they’re soft. Air dribble shots come off at a median 75 kph, against 84 for every other shot. They go in 16% of the time, against 30%. From the same spot it’s 11 points less, and even at the same speed it’s 7 points less, so it isn’t only how hard they’re hit.
Shots that go in
So the higher you climb, the more of your shots become one of the softest shots in the game.
Drive into it faster, hit it through the middle, along your line.
So how do you actually hit it at 110? Mostly, it’s how fast you’re driving into it. Every 10 kph more car speed adds about 6 kph of shot speed. That’s the biggest single thing.
Then it’s where you hit it. Struck dead centre, the ball comes off at a median 104 kph. Caught well off centre, 77. And hit it along the way you’re going. Cut across it and your speed goes sideways instead of into the shot, 102 kph straight through against 78.
Median shot speed, kph
A ball rolling towards you helps a bit, about 3 kph for every 10 it’s coming at you. So does the flip, about 5 kph. But not by much more.
| Ingredient | Effect on shot speed |
|---|---|
| Your car’s speed into the touch | +0.61 kph per kph (+0.59 to +0.62) |
| How far off centre you hit it | −0.28 kph per degree |
| The ball’s own speed towards you | +0.28 kph per kph |
| A flip into the touch | +4.9 kph (+4.4 to +5.5) |
| How far you cut across it | −0.06 kph per degree |
Every rank arrives at the ball at the same speed, under supersonic.
So why does every rank hit it at the same speed? Because every rank arrives at the ball at the same speed. The median car speed into a shot is 68 to 71 kph at every rank and for the pros. Supersonic is 79.
Fast and flipping, share of shots
Only about three shots in ten come in fast and with a flip, at Platinum and for the pros. Put it all together and the hardest shots look the same every time. Supersonic, a flip, straight through the middle.
Staying back as second man isn’t just the safe option. It’s your run up.
In my system I call it string theory. Picture a string between you and your teammate. When they go forward, it keeps you back, about two to three pads in the middle. That distance is your run up. When the ball comes out to you, you’ve got room to build speed and drive through it.
And the data shows it. Shooters who were the deeper of the two, two seconds before, hit it about 4 kph harder. And a third of their shots go in, against about a quarter, still more from the same spot.
Shots that go in, by who was deeper 2 s before
Come from 30 metres back or more and it’s 8.5 kph harder, from the same spot. A quarter of shots come from that far.
The string works both ways. If your teammate’s back, use them.
A shot straight off your teammate’s pass goes in 37% of the time. Anything else, 28%. Still more from the same spot. About one shot in nine comes off a pass.
Shots that go in
Pass it away from the nearest opponent and your teammate has more space to line it up, 10.9 metres against 8.6. At GC and above, if you want to go up for it, the pass makes the first touch easier.
Which pro do you play like?
Upload one 2v2 replay to the free Pro Match report. It shows which of the twelve most popular pros you play like, the one habit to keep and the one thing to work on.
Find my Pro MatchNearly six in ten soft shots didn’t have to be soft.
We split every ordinary shot under 90 kph by what was going on when it was hit. No air dribbles, wall shots or flicks, 12,669 shots.
Ordinary shots under 90 kph
About a third are forced. You’re slow and under pressure, or out of boost. Fair enough. But more than four in ten, you’re already going fast. You just don’t flip into it, or you flip and catch it off centre. And about one in six, you’ve got the boost, nobody near you, and you still hit it slow.
Hitting it hard isn’t about forcing it. It’s about having the time to make a clean contact. And that comes from your fundamentals, not flip resets, and from giving yourself enough distance to work with.
Drive in faster. Hit it through the middle. Use your teammate.
The rest of this section is my coaching, built on what held in the data. It isn’t data itself.
- Drive into the ball faster, from a run up. Your car’s speed is the biggest single thing. Give yourself the distance to build it, and stay back as second man so you’ve got it.
- Hit it through the middle, along your line. Dead centre and straight through, not clipped off the corner of the car or cut across.
- Use your teammate. A shot off a pass goes in more, and a pass away from the nearest defender gives them room to hit it clean.
- If they’re on the floor in net, get it off the floor. Jab it. You don’t need to flip into it to beat a keeper sat on the ground.
| Drill | How |
|---|---|
| 17B, rising | Bounce dribble the ball, then side flip straight through the middle of it as it rises off the bounce. |
| 17C, falling | The same, but this time as it falls. Drive into it fast every time, you’ll feel how much harder it comes off the car. |
Next game, watch how hard you’re actually hitting it.
Thirty three frozen claims, thirty one held. Still observational.
| Measure | Result | Read it with this |
|---|---|---|
| Hard shots go in more | Ranked, same spot, odds 2.74 (2.54 to 2.96) · the pros 3.88 (3.24 to 4.64) · every rank 2.13 to 3.43 | Held |
| Not the situation | Defenders, pressure, a pass, the air and the flip held fixed, odds 2.26 (2.08 to 2.44) | Held |
| Not just better players | Same player, same game, odds 2.67 (2.44 to 2.93), 2,055 player games | Held |
| Nobody does it more | Under 90 kph, 60% to 66% at every rank · medians 81 to 84 | Held |
| The curve | 110 to 119 47% against 60 to 79 22%, same spot · 120 plus 37% | Held, it stops climbing past 120 |
| On target | 110 to 119 57% against under 60 39% | Held |
| Winners don’t hit harder | Winners’ misses hit 90 plus more often in 50% of 542 games | Held, a coin flip |
| Not the measurement | Shots touched again inside 0.3 s left out, odds 2.81 (2.60 to 3.05) | Held |
| Low into someone in net | Low 44% against off the floor 58% · a keeper on the floor, 31% against 49% | Held, mostly the keeper on the floor |
| Slow and placed high | Slow low 39%, slow high 52%, hard low 55%, hard high 69% | Held |
| Hard inside every kind | Odds 2.58 (2.39 to 2.79), aerials 2.41, power shots 4.00 | Held |
| Wall shots | 13% go in, 750 shots | Held raw, not on each set alone from the same spot |
| Air dribbles | 2.5% of Plat’s shots to 19.0% at SSL and 19.8% for the pros · 16% go in, median 75 kph | Held |
| The power recipe | Car speed +0.61 per kph · flip +4.9 · ball +0.28 per kph · off centre and cut across cost speed | Held, car speed matters most |
| Nobody arrives faster | Fast and flipping 29% to 31% · median car speed 68 to 71 kph | Held |
| The run up | The deeper of the two, 33.2% against 25.9%, +3.9 kph · 30 m plus back, +8.5 kph | Held, same spot |
| Off a pass | 37.3% against 27.7% · aerials at GC and up 33.8% against 24.3% · away from the nearest opponent, +96 uu of space | Held, same spot |
| Ending past the ball after a miss | A goal against inside 10 s, 9.5% against 3.5%, odds 2.81 (2.31 to 3.43) | Held |
| A hard or flipped miss countered more | Odds 1.11 (0.92 to 1.35) and 0.89 (0.74 to 1.07) | Not shown either way, too wide to call |
And here are the two that failed. They were written down before the games kept back to test them were opened, and they’re reported as they came out.
| Claim | What came out | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| A half volley goes in more than a power shot from the same spot | +2 points (p 0.38), 37% against 34% | Failed |
| A shot off a pass goes in more at the same speed | Odds 1.09 (0.96 to 1.22) | Failed |
The strongest evidence is how consistent it is. The same speed at every rank, and hard shots going in more at every rank, for the pros, for the same player and from the same spot, on the games we explored and the games kept back. What it isn’t is proof of cause. And it isn’t peer reviewed.
The detail behind the numbers.
The sample
Ranked 2v2 replays from Ballchasing, picked before anything was pulled with a fixed seed, about the same number for Platinum, Diamond, Champion, Grand Champion and Supersonic Legend, and the pros’ own 2v2 games. Each was read frame by frame. In all, 35,647 shots from 1,589 games. Before any test the games were split by a hash of the match id, one set to explore and one kept back. The figures on this page are from the three sets kept back, pooled, 898 games and 20,122 shots. Rank is the replay’s band on Ballchasing.
What counts as a shot
Any touch by the attacking team that would carry the ball to the goal end within four seconds, inside 1,000 uu of a post and 600 over the bar, counting gravity and bounces, that no attacker touches again before it gets there. Plus the last attacking touch before every goal. It went in when the next goal is the shooter’s team’s with no attacker touching it again first.
Shot speed, on target and low
Shot speed is the ball’s speed just after the touch, in kph. On target means the whole ball would cross between the posts and under the bar. Low means it would cross with its centre under 200 uu, the floor to about a third of the way up. Hard means 90 kph or more.
The same spot
Every comparison marked same spot holds the distance, the angle and the height of the shot fixed in bands, and the rank, with the errors clustered by game. Raw figures are the plain share that went in.
The keeper, the run up and a pass
Someone in net means a defender between the ball and the middle of the goal near the line. On the floor means their car on the ground at the shot. The deeper of the two is the shooter being the nearer of the pair to their own goal two seconds before the shot. A shot off a pass is one whose touch before it came from a teammate.
How power is made
One linear model of shot speed on the car’s speed into the touch, a flip, the ball’s own speed towards the car, how far off the middle of the car’s face the ball was struck and how far the car cut across the ball’s line, on 14,382 shots. Together they explain 55% of the spread.
Claims and the games kept back
Each round of claims was written down, with the test that would decide it, before a single game kept back for it was turned into shots. Each was tested once. Thirty three claims across four rounds, thirty one held, and the two that failed are reported above.
What the findings show and what’s still open.
What’s the highest percentage shot in Rocket League?
A clean, hard shot at about 110 kph, off the floor if the keeper is sat on the ground. From the same spot, 110 to 119 kph goes in 47% of the time, more than twice as often as 60 to 79.
Should I just hit everything as hard as I can?
No. Past 120 kph fewer shots are on target, so fewer go in. The sweet spot is about 110, hard and still clean. And don’t force a flip into a shot you can’t make, ending up past the ball after a miss is what gets you countered.
Do higher ranks hit the ball harder?
No. The median is about 83 kph at every rank and for the pros, and six shots in ten are under 90 at every rank.
Is placement more important than power?
Both help, and speed helps more. On target with someone in net, slow and low goes in 39%, hard and off the floor 69%.
Are air dribbles a bad shot?
They go in 16% of the time against 30% for every other shot, 11 points less from the same spot and 7 points less at the same speed. That’s the plain air dribble. Flip resets, bumps and fakes are my coaching, not a number here.
How do I hit the ball harder in Rocket League?
Drive into it faster, hit it through the middle and along your line. Car speed matters most, every 10 kph adds about 6 kph of shot speed. Then the flip, about 5 kph. Drills 17B and 17C from the book train it.
Is the coaching proven by this study?
No. It’s my coaching, aimed at what the data found. It hasn’t been tested as an intervention.
Shot speed is the same at every rank. Everything around the shot isn’t.
Where you are, when you go, who’s back. The free Pro Match report reads one of your 2v2 replays and tells you which of the twelve most popular pros you play like, the one habit to keep and the one thing to work on. Pacifist Score measures how well you play the Pacifist System, and the whole system is in the Digital Edition. Study 009 informs that coaching. It is not a validation of every part of the system.
PACIFIST LABS Shaping the Future of Rocket League Decision-Making.